A directory lists you and you wait for clients to find you. Headroom runs the administrative and operational side of your practice too: responding to queries, conversion of leads to paying clients, warm referrals through Guidance Sessions, compliant informed consent, secure payment collection, rescheduling, cancellations, refunds, medical aid-compliant invoicing, testimonials collection and a real human-operated support desk for you and your clients.

Registration with a recognised South African (HPCSA, SACSSP, ASCHP) or international professional body that enforces similar standards, including a Code of Ethics, Code of Conduct, minimum continued professional development (CPD) and enables us to verify your active membership in line with the scope of work you set up on Headroom. This verification is conducted during onboarding.

In order to change your password you need to be logged in to your account. Then hover over the top right hand corner, where it says 'Hello', and select 'My Account' from the drop down list. This will take you to your Account Page, where you will find the 'Change Password' option.

Should you wish to use a different email address from the one you signed up with, you'll need to open a brand new account. Changing your email address will impact your notifications and other important communications from our side and as such we perform some basic procedures before effecting the change for you. Once you have a bookings history on the original account, this will not transfer to the new account / email address. 

There can be several causes of this, which are listed below. If you notice this early (i.e. before or after the 1st failed deduction attempt by the bank), you can generally troubleshoot these quite easily yourself, as suggested. 

1. Your card is no longer valid - Go to your account menu / My Subscription / Update Details / upload your new card details. 

2. Insufficient Funds - Transfer funds into your account and check if the subscription payment is successful in the next 24-48h, when the payments provider attempts to charge your account again.

3. You Cancelled / Paused Your Subscription 
If you cancel your subscription via a banking app or other channels  outside of the Headroom platform, your subscription will trigger a notice period and deactivation on our platform. This may result in disappointment / loss of clients and administrative fees in reinstating your account. 

If you are troubleshooting these issues only AFTER the 2nd or 3rd FAILED attempts by the bank to deduct your subscription, please note that this will most likely not automatically trigger a successful deduction. Please email us on admin@staging.headroom.co.za to assist you manually.  

Headroom reserves the right to charge an administrative fee to assist with the resolution of online payment issues not caused by us. 

If you have no upcoming client sessions scheduled in your calendar, you can cancel your subscription yourself, in your Account Menu / My Subscription. This will deactivate but not delete your account. Should you wish to delete your account permanently for any reason, kindly send us an email and we will gladly assist you with no questions asked. 

If you have upcoming client sessions, please contact us to arrange a timely and orderly handover with you before giving effect to the deletion of your account.

Client continuity of care is a basic code-of-conduct requirement in the professional practice of mental health. We therefore rely on your utmost professionalism to handle any intended exit from the platform as responsibly, transparently, and collaboratively as possible with Headroom.

Why are Headroom subscriptions set up on recurring billing?
Each subscription plan includes recurring billing because it signals the intended duration and stability of your commitment to practising through Headroom. As long as your subscription remains active, Headroom can make your profile available for bookings with confidence that your practice remains stable and that client bookings will be honoured.

What happens if I intentionally cancel my subscription or do not renew it?
Ending your subscription is not treated as a simple consumer cancellation (think news or streaming).
Because Headroom operates in a professional mental health environment,
any exit from the platform must be managed carefully to protect legal,
compliance, administrative, access-control, and client
continuity-of-care interests.
If you cancel your subscription or fail to make a renewal payment, Headroom will treat this as a signal to begin winding down your active responsibilities in relation to Headroom’s clients and platform.

What is the notice period for?
A notice period applies before the expiry of your subscription. During that time, your account remains active for existing bookings only, but no new client bookings will be assigned to you. This allows time for an orderly handover, client communication where necessary, and proper continuity-of-care arrangements.

What if I cancel too close to renewal for proper notice to be given?
If cancellation occurs too close to the renewal date for Headroom to manage the transition responsibly, and insufficient notice results, you will be liable for a further subscription fee equivalent to your most recent subscription plan for one full additional term. Headroom also reserves the right to recover any reasonable costs arising from the disruption.

When does a profile get deactivated?
Deactivation can be automatic or instruction-driven. 
If you cancel or do not renew your subscription and once the notice period linked to your active subscription plan has expired, your account will be deactivated automatically. If you ask us to deactivate your account for reasons such as studies, sabbatical, maternity leave, prolonged travel, or a decision to pause or stop practising through the platform or work in private practice at all, we will deactivate your account as per your instruction. 

What happens when my account is deactivated?
Your profile will no longer be bookable by clients. You will also lose access to your dashboard and will not be able to join meetings linked to that account. Where any outstanding administrative actions remain necessary in respect of particular client cases, such as medical aid invoices or similar documentation, Headroom will contact you to arrange an orderly handover.

Can I return to Headroom later and have my previous profile reactivated?
Yes. You may return at any time. In most cases, your previous profile can be restored with its historical data, including past session count, shared user experiences, and client or platform records associated with that account.

Is there a fee to reactivate my previous profile?
Yes. A reactivation fee of R799 applies, in addition to the subscription plan you select going forward. Or you may open a brand new account at no additional cost beyond your selected subscription plan. A new account will not include any history from your previous profile.

Client continuity of care is a basic code-of-conduct requirement in the professional practice of mental health. We therefore rely on your utmost professionalism to handle any intended exit from the platform timeously and as responsibly, transparently, and collaboratively as possible with Headroom.

Why are Headroom subscriptions set up on recurring billing?
Each subscription plan includes recurring billing because it signals the intended duration and stability of your commitment to practising through Headroom. As long as your subscription remains active, Headroom can make your profile available for bookings with confidence that your practice remains stable and that client bookings will be honoured.

What happens if I intentionally cancel my subscription or it expires without renewal?
Ending your subscription is not treated as a simple consumer cancellation (think news or streaming services).
Because Headroom operates in a professional mental health environment, any exit from the platform must be managed carefully to protect the legal, compliance, administrative, access-control, and client continuity-of-care interests.
If you cancel your subscription or fail to make a renewal payment, Headroom will treat this as a signal to begin winding down your active responsibilities in relation to Headroom’s clients and platform. A reactivation of a professional’s profile that expired due to their failure to maintain it will attract administrative charges.

What is the notice period for?
A notice period applies before the expiry of your subscription. During that time, your account remains active for existing bookings only, but no new client bookings will be assigned to you. This allows time for an orderly handover, client communication where necessary, and proper continuity-of-care arrangements.

What if I cancel too close to renewal for proper notice to be given?
If cancellation occurs too close to the renewal date for Headroom to manage the transition responsibly, and insufficient notice results, you will be liable for a further subscription fee equivalent to your most recent subscription plan for one full additional term. Headroom also reserves the right to recover any reasonable costs arising from the disruption.

What if I cancel immediately after subscribing, to stop any recurring charges from taking place in the future?
Please do not do this unless you no longer wish to work with Headroom. A cancellation triggers a set of operational steps, the reversal of which will trigger an administrative charge. If you are on the annual plan, we will send you a notification to alert you to your subscription expiring soon, with sufficient notice for you to ensure a timely renewal.

Many clients overcome real hesitation, past disappointments or other significant barriers just to make a booking. A no-show from a trusted professional can be discouraging, and may stop a client from trying again, so practitioners are expected to honour session bookings reliably and log in on time. If illness, a personal emergency or unusual circumstances mean you won’t be able to attend a session, let us know as soon as possible so we can contact the client on your behalf and arrange a reschedule. Reschedules and cancellations initiated by the practitioner attract an additional administrative fee, viewable on your practitioner dashboard.

Sessions booked through Headroom need to be conducted on the platform. This isn’t a minor administrative rule: Headroom invests materially in marketing, client acquisition and client retention to bring you each booking, and the platform’s attendance records are what drive your payouts, invoicing and compliance documentation. If a session happens off-platform, those records are incomplete, which can affect your payout and leaves both you and the client with less protection if a dispute or complaint arises — including under POPIA and standard consumer protection requirements. Taking a client off the platform may also leave you liable for related costs. If you’re planning to bring an existing client base onto Headroom, talk to us first — we can set this up transparently, so that client list is recognised as yours, including if you ever decide to leave the platform.

Test connection environment You are able to test your connection by selecting the ‘Test Connection’ hyperlink associated with each booked session. Selecting this hyperlink launches a test room where you are able to view your own image on the screen to confirm that the camera is operational.

The video and audio can be switched on or off by selecting the camera or microphone icon in the bottom left hand side of the screen. Note that the icons are presented with a strike through line. When the icons are black the camera and microphone are active/switched on. When the icons are red then they are inactive/switched off. In both instances a strike through line is visible.

In the right-hand corner of the test screen is an icon made up of three little dots. Clicking on this icon launches the settings for the test room. We encourage all users to familiarise themselves with the layout and settings of the video conferencing room:

Camera/microphone settings: allow you to change the source of the mic: microphone sound, camera, video image and speakers, sounds speakers. In order to test the speakers, you are able to run a sound test by clicking on ‘play test sound’.

Video quality: this allows you to select the video quality (high, low or camera off – which should only be done to save bandwidth).

Active speaker view: determines whose image is to be displayed more prominently.

Virtual room In addition to the features in the test connection environment, the virtual room also has a setting which provides feedback on the quality of the internet connection. If you are experiencing some granularity in the video images initially, allow a 1-2 minutes for the connection to stabilise.

If you regularly receive the message ‘retrying’ this is likely related to network. It is useful to also keep in mind that the video conferencing sessions are taking place in a browser. Therefore, if you are experiencing problems, one workaround is to quit the session in the browser you are currently using and reopening it in new browser. The calls can be conducted via the following browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge, in order of preference and quality. Chrome is the recommended browser and delivers most consistent quality video.

If you are receiving messages regarding ‘packet loss’ during a session, try one of the following:

• Reboot computer
• Move closer to your Wifi router

(Packet loss is different from your speed test or download speed. Packet loss reflects UDP data, which is the data transmitted when you stream live media.  When streaming live media, network issues often relate to an OS-level root cause. That is why, if you're having issues, rebooting can be effective).

The virtual room is available only for the booked session time and will close automatically at the scheduled end time. A countdown timer appears at the top of the screen to help both you and the client keep track of time.

It is important for you as the professional to remain aware of time throughout the session and to guide the flow of the conversation in a way that allows for a calm, natural ending. As a rule, the session should not run up to the final second with a major issue still being opened, explored, or emotionally intensified. Instead, aim to pace the session so that there is enough time to slow down, pull the main threads together, and bring the conversation to a contained and meaningful close.

Never cancel a Headroom session that appears in your connected calendar, before or after the session has taken place. This would delete the audit trail of the booking (as our system is synchronised with your online calendar) and we won't be able to pay you out.

Professionals are expected to be reliable in honoring session bookings and punctual in logging in. 

Please submit your request to cancel or reschedule to us no later than 24h before the session.
In emergencies, please let us know as soon as possible.

Headroom administration fees will apply for any cancellations or rescheduling of sessions by the professional. For details, please refer to the last question in these FAQs on additional fees.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding cancelling or rescheduling sessions, please email us and we will gladly assist.

Headroom

We publish user experiences to help clients make informed choices. We do not remove user experiences simply because they are negative or disputed.

We may edit, pause, or remove one if it:

• is not linked to a verified booking on Headroom

• includes harassment, threats, hate speech, or abusive language

• includes identifying or private information about any person

• includes excessive session detail that risks confidentiality

• is spam, promotional, or appears manipulated

If a user experience is disputed, we may temporarily pause public display while we verify the booking and assess the content against our policy. This pause is not a finding in favour of or against either party.

Professionals

Our system allows you to respond to user experiences on your profile left by your clients. 

When responding, please be aware of the basic principles of confidentiality - avoid mentioning session details or any identifying information. 

If you dispute anything contained in the client's post, or if you believe that it breaches our policy or is not linked to a valid Headroom booking, please contact us at admin@staging.headroom.co.za. Please provide us with the session details, explanation of what you disagree with, and you may suggest minor edits (for example removing identifying details or reframing wording) that would make the post acceptable to you. We will consider this input as part of our policy-based assessment.

A confirmed session needs to be paid for in full at the time of booking.

Punctuality and session attendance:

• If you are not punctual in terms of attendance of a session,  the lost time will not be substituted.
• If you fail to sign in for a scheduled session for whatever reason, an admin fee of R250 may be charged to you to cover the transaction and platform related fees incurred by Headroom.

Technical glitches:

• If the session is compromised for any reason due to technical issues on our platform, please immediately contact us for assistance. In the event that the issue cannot be resolved, the participants will have the choice to reschedule the session or request a full refund.

A client can, via their account dashboard / Upcoming Sessions tab:

• Reschedule a session up to 24 hours in advance.
  
• Cancel a session up to 24 hours in advance. Headroom will issue a voucher to the client which can be credited against the cost of a
  future session. A cancelled session may be refunded at the client's request, net of transaction fees. 

If you have any questions or concerns regarding refunds, please email us and we will gladly assist.

It is possible for multiple participants (in the same or different place) to convene in the same session. Whether this is desirable will be determined at the discretion of the professional.  The professional may suggest that individual sessions are conducted with multiple parties separately to understand the individual perspectives. In order to access the Headroom virtual rooms every participant will need to be registered as a user of the Headroom platform (either as a Client or a Professional).

Our video rooms can accommodate up to 200 participants at once. Should you wish to make use of our facilities for group sessions, please contact us to make appropriate arrangements. 

If two participants will be joining from different locations:

• Both participants must have their own registered Headroom profile.
• The client who booked and paid for the session will receive the session link.
• That client should share the link with the other participant.
• Both individuals must log in to their accounts and use the shared link to join the session.

This ensures the session remains secure and confidential.

Public webinars are an excellent way to gain valuable insights and resources very affordably. However, ensuring that these sessions remain a safe and comfortable space requires careful attention to privacy, confidentiality, and discretion. As a platform, we prioritize these values to protect attendees while fostering a supportive environment for learning and sharing.

How We Ensure Privacy, Confidentiality, and Discretion

As presenters, we take deliberate measures to anonymize our webinars and safeguard participant identities:

1. Anonymized Participation: The Zoom meeting settings are configured to hide attendees' names, photos, or live videos unless they voluntarily choose to enable them.

2. Secure Platforms: We use secure platforms with encrypted connections to ensure that all communication remains protected from unauthorized access.

3. Moderated Sharing: Any contributions made via chat or Q&A are moderated and anonymized before being shared with the larger group.

4. No Recordings Without Consent: Sessions are not recorded or distributed unless explicit consent is provided by all parties involved.

How Attendees Can Anonymize Themselves

Attendees can take the following steps to further ensure their anonymity while participating in webinars:

1. Use a Pseudonym: When joining the webinar, replace your real name with an alias or initials.

2. Turn Off Video and Audio: Keep your camera and microphone off unless you are comfortable sharing.

3. Disable Profile Photos: Remove or replace profile photos with neutral images to avoid identification.

4. Adjust Background Settings: If video is enabled, use a virtual background to obscure your environment.

How to Remain Undisturbed During Webinars

To fully focus on the webinar, consider these strategies to minimize interruptions:

1. Inform Family or Colleagues: Let those around you know that you are attending a private session and need uninterrupted time.

2. Choose a Quiet Location: Find a space where you can participate without distractions or background noise.

3. Use Headphones: Wearing headphones ensures privacy and reduces the chance of others overhearing sensitive content.

4. Silence Notifications: Turn off notifications on your devices to avoid interruptions during the session.

5. Schedule Strategically: Plan your attendance during a time when you are least likely to be disturbed.

Tips on Exercising Discretion

Discretion is a shared responsibility that ensures everyone’s experience remains positive and secure. Here’s how attendees can practice discretion:

1. Respect Confidentiality: Avoid sharing or discussing the names, identities, or contributions of other attendees outside the webinar.

2. Avoid Recording: Do not take screenshots, record audio, or save chat messages without explicit permission.

3. Be Mindful in Discussions: If sharing webinar insights with others, do so in a way that does not disclose specific details or identities.

4. Practice Empathy: Recognize that others may share vulnerable or sensitive information and treat it with care and respect.

5. Follow Post-Session Guidelines: If the platform provides confidentiality agreements or guidelines, adhere to them strictly.

Conclusion

Privacy, confidentiality, and discretion are the cornerstones of any successful mental health webinar and/or therapy group. Together, we can foster an atmosphere of trust and empowerment, allowing everyone to benefit fully from the experience.

Headroom

We publish user experiences to help people make informed choices. 
As a policy, we do not remove user experiences simply because they are negative or disputed.

We may edit, pause, or remove one if it:

• is not linked to a verified booking on Headroom

• includes harassment, threats, hate speech, or abusive language

• includes identifying or private information about any person

• includes excessive session detail that risks confidentiality

• is spam, promotional, or appears manipulated

If a user experience is disputed, we may temporarily pause public display while we verify the booking and assess the content against our policy. This pause is not a finding in favour of or against either party.

Clients

We encourage everyone to share their experiences - both the inspiring ones and the constructive ones. 

To keep them fair, keep your comments focused on your personal experience (what felt helpful or unhelpful), avoid mentioning names, identifying details, or detailed session content. 

If you have a serious concern about care or safety, please do not hesitate to contact us on admin@staging.headroom.co.za. We will ensure your continued support and, where appropriate, help you find a different professional and a more suitable match.

A directory lists you and you wait for clients to find you. Headroom runs the administrative and operational side of your practice too: responding to queries, conversion of leads to paying clients, warm referrals through Guidance Sessions, compliant informed consent, secure payment collection, rescheduling, cancellations, refunds, medical aid-compliant invoicing, testimonials collection and a real human-operated support desk for you and your clients.

Yes. Your profile lets you list the specific approaches, client populations and areas of focus you work in. Clients filter by this when searching, and Guidance Session and corporate referral routing use the same information to match you with people already looking for what you offer. Specialising builds a visible track record over time, helping you compete on fit rather than price.

Yes. Headroom can run as a fully separate online arm of your practice or be integrated with your existing setup, managed through the same calendar and dashboard. You are also welcome to run your entire practice bookings and administration through Headroom – this can free you up for valuable time with clients and building additional referral networks for your practice.

If you’re planning to bring an existing client base onto Headroom, talk to us first — we can set this up transparently, so that client list is recognised as yours, including if you ever decide to leave the platform.

It is possible for multiple participants (in the same or different place) to convene in the same session. Whether this is desirable will be determined at the discretion of the professional.  The professional may suggest that individual sessions are conducted with multiple parties separately to understand the individual perspectives. In order to access the Headroom virtual rooms every participant will need to be registered as a user of the Headroom platform (either as a Client or a Professional).

Our video rooms can accommodate up to 200 participants at once. Should you wish to make use of our facilities for group sessions, please contact us to make appropriate arrangements. 

Many clients overcome real hesitation, past disappointments or other significant barriers just to make a booking. A no-show from a trusted professional can be discouraging, and may stop a client from trying again, so practitioners are expected to honour session bookings reliably and log in on time. If illness, a personal emergency or unusual circumstances mean you won’t be able to attend a session, let us know as soon as possible so we can contact the client on your behalf and arrange a reschedule. Reschedules and cancellations initiated by the practitioner attract an additional administrative fee, viewable on your practitioner dashboard.

Yes, automatically, on both plans. You don’t need a separate billing system for medical aid clients. After the session, you simply insert the tariff codes as applicable and issue the invoice with one click. The client claims from their medical aid.

Clients pay upfront through a secure payment gateway before every session. You receive a monthly payout with an itemised invoice. Because payments are collected at booking, there are no late payments and no bad debt.

One of the key goals of Headroom's work is to keep coaching, counselling and therapy financially affordable.

We put a lot of thinking and effort into automation of systems and processes, so we can keep our own services as cost-efficient as possible. 

In instances where excessive and/manual involvement of our team is required to rectify situations caused by a professional's negligence, breach of our terms and conditions, or other causes within the professional's control, Headroom reserves the right to charge full activity-driven fees, including but not limited to the following:

• Session "No-show"/ Session conducted off the Headroom platform: ZAR 250,- / USD 16,-
• Rescheduling by the professional, >24h before session: ZAR 250,- / USD 16,-
• Rescheduling by the professional, <24h before session: ZAR 350,- / USD 22,-
• Headroom Client rerouted to a professional's private practice: full cost of client acquisition and retention, min. ZAR 2500,- / USD 160,-
• Account Reactivation once allowed to expire: ZAR 799,- / USD 50,-
• Other: ZAR 950,- / USD 60,- per hour

A confirmed session needs to be paid for in full at the time of booking.

Punctuality and session attendance:

• If you are not punctual in terms of attendance of a session,  the lost time will not be substituted.
• If you fail to sign in for a scheduled session for whatever reason, an admin fee of R250 may be charged to you to cover the transaction and platform related fees incurred by Headroom.

Technical glitches:

• If the session is compromised for any reason due to technical issues on our platform, please immediately contact us for assistance. In the event that the issue cannot be resolved, the participants will have the choice to reschedule the session or request a full refund.

A client can, via their account dashboard / Upcoming Sessions tab:

• Reschedule a session up to 24 hours in advance.
  
• Cancel a session up to 24 hours in advance. Headroom will issue a voucher to the client which can be credited against the cost of a
  future session. A cancelled session may be refunded at the client's request, net of transaction fees. 

If you have any questions or concerns regarding refunds, please email us and we will gladly assist.

Should you require any support whatsoever, make use of the contact form or send us an email and we will respond as soon as possible.

Headroom

We publish user experiences to help clients make informed choices. We do not remove user experiences simply because they are negative or disputed.

We may edit, pause, or remove one if it:

• is not linked to a verified booking on Headroom

• includes harassment, threats, hate speech, or abusive language

• includes identifying or private information about any person

• includes excessive session detail that risks confidentiality

• is spam, promotional, or appears manipulated

If a user experience is disputed, we may temporarily pause public display while we verify the booking and assess the content against our policy. This pause is not a finding in favour of or against either party.

Professionals

Our system allows you to respond to user experiences on your profile left by your clients. 

When responding, please be aware of the basic principles of confidentiality - avoid mentioning session details or any identifying information. 

If you dispute anything contained in the client's post, or if you believe that it breaches our policy or is not linked to a valid Headroom booking, please contact us at admin@staging.headroom.co.za. Please provide us with the session details, explanation of what you disagree with, and you may suggest minor edits (for example removing identifying details or reframing wording) that would make the post acceptable to you. We will consider this input as part of our policy-based assessment.

Generally not. Headroom may not disclose a client’s personal contact information to you outside the platform’s normal booking process.

Clients value their privacy and their ability to decide when and how they engage. Many local and international clients deliberately choose Headroom as an independent online platform to keep contact strictly limited to their session times. 

For this reason, follow-up discussions, resources, and “homework” should be dealt with during the session itself. If a client wishes to share information with you before the next appointment, they will do so in the notes attached to their booking.

If a client has personally shared their contact details with you during a session and contact outside of your sessions is unavoidable, limited contact may be appropriate. However, we strongly advise professionals to keep communication within scheduled sessions to avoid any misunderstandings.

Headroom

We publish user experiences to help people make informed choices. 
As a policy, we do not remove user experiences simply because they are negative or disputed.

We may edit, pause, or remove one if it:

• is not linked to a verified booking on Headroom

• includes harassment, threats, hate speech, or abusive language

• includes identifying or private information about any person

• includes excessive session detail that risks confidentiality

• is spam, promotional, or appears manipulated

If a user experience is disputed, we may temporarily pause public display while we verify the booking and assess the content against our policy. This pause is not a finding in favour of or against either party.

Clients

We encourage everyone to share their experiences - both the inspiring ones and the constructive ones. 

To keep them fair, keep your comments focused on your personal experience (what felt helpful or unhelpful), avoid mentioning names, identifying details, or detailed session content. 

If you have a serious concern about care or safety, please do not hesitate to contact us on admin@staging.headroom.co.za. We will ensure your continued support and, where appropriate, help you find a different professional and a more suitable match.

Sessions booked through Headroom need to be conducted on the platform. This isn’t a minor administrative rule: Headroom invests materially in marketing, client acquisition and client retention to bring you each booking, and the platform’s attendance records are what drive your payouts, invoicing and compliance documentation. If a session happens off-platform, those records are incomplete, which can affect your payout and leaves both you and the client with less protection if a dispute or complaint arises — including under POPIA and standard consumer protection requirements. Taking a client off the platform may also leave you liable for related costs. If you’re planning to bring an existing client base onto Headroom, talk to us first — we can set this up transparently, so that client list is recognised as yours, including if you ever decide to leave the platform.

Registration with a recognised South African (HPCSA, SACSSP, ASCHP) or international professional body that enforces similar standards, including a Code of Ethics, Code of Conduct, minimum continued professional development (CPD) and enables us to verify your active membership in line with the scope of work you set up on Headroom. This verification is conducted during onboarding.

Each of the professional industry bodies with whom the Headroom's therapists, counsellors and coaches are registered issues a Code of Conduct and/or Ethics. These Codes prescribe a set of norms, standards, rules and responsibilities associated with proper and ethical conduct that every professional member must follow.

Follow the links below to view the Codes:

• • • HPCSA Guidelines for Good Practice in the Health Care Professions 
    • HPCSA Guidelines for Telemedicine in South Africa
    • South African Professional Conduct Guidelines in South Africa (PsySSA)
    • Policy Guidelines for Course of Conduct, Code of Ethics and the Rules for Social Workers (SACSSP) 
    • Association for Supportive Counsellors and Holistic Practitioners (ASCHP) Code of Ethics
  •  

Public webinars are an excellent way to gain valuable insights and resources very affordably. However, ensuring that these sessions remain a safe and comfortable space requires careful attention to privacy, confidentiality, and discretion. As a platform, we prioritize these values to protect attendees while fostering a supportive environment for learning and sharing.

How We Ensure Privacy, Confidentiality, and Discretion

As presenters, we take deliberate measures to anonymize our webinars and safeguard participant identities:

1. Anonymized Participation: The Zoom meeting settings are configured to hide attendees' names, photos, or live videos unless they voluntarily choose to enable them.

2. Secure Platforms: We use secure platforms with encrypted connections to ensure that all communication remains protected from unauthorized access.

3. Moderated Sharing: Any contributions made via chat or Q&A are moderated and anonymized before being shared with the larger group.

4. No Recordings Without Consent: Sessions are not recorded or distributed unless explicit consent is provided by all parties involved.

How Attendees Can Anonymize Themselves

Attendees can take the following steps to further ensure their anonymity while participating in webinars:

1. Use a Pseudonym: When joining the webinar, replace your real name with an alias or initials.

2. Turn Off Video and Audio: Keep your camera and microphone off unless you are comfortable sharing.

3. Disable Profile Photos: Remove or replace profile photos with neutral images to avoid identification.

4. Adjust Background Settings: If video is enabled, use a virtual background to obscure your environment.

How to Remain Undisturbed During Webinars

To fully focus on the webinar, consider these strategies to minimize interruptions:

1. Inform Family or Colleagues: Let those around you know that you are attending a private session and need uninterrupted time.

2. Choose a Quiet Location: Find a space where you can participate without distractions or background noise.

3. Use Headphones: Wearing headphones ensures privacy and reduces the chance of others overhearing sensitive content.

4. Silence Notifications: Turn off notifications on your devices to avoid interruptions during the session.

5. Schedule Strategically: Plan your attendance during a time when you are least likely to be disturbed.

Tips on Exercising Discretion

Discretion is a shared responsibility that ensures everyone’s experience remains positive and secure. Here’s how attendees can practice discretion:

1. Respect Confidentiality: Avoid sharing or discussing the names, identities, or contributions of other attendees outside the webinar.

2. Avoid Recording: Do not take screenshots, record audio, or save chat messages without explicit permission.

3. Be Mindful in Discussions: If sharing webinar insights with others, do so in a way that does not disclose specific details or identities.

4. Practice Empathy: Recognize that others may share vulnerable or sensitive information and treat it with care and respect.

5. Follow Post-Session Guidelines: If the platform provides confidentiality agreements or guidelines, adhere to them strictly.

Conclusion

Privacy, confidentiality, and discretion are the cornerstones of any successful mental health webinar and/or therapy group. Together, we can foster an atmosphere of trust and empowerment, allowing everyone to benefit fully from the experience.